Saturday, December 29, 2018

Grace to you and
peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ.Amen

Christ was born in Bethlehem.

Now, he had to
grow up.

We know little of
his childhood, though stories abound.One of the sources of some incredible, meaning, unbelievable stories
about Jesus the child, come from the Infancy Gospel of Thomas.

The first
example:

1 1 When the boy
Jesus was five years old, he was playing at the ford of a rushing stream. And
he gathered the disturbed water into pools and made them pure and excellent,
commanding them by the character of his word alone and not by means of a deed.2 Then,
taking soft clay from the mud, he formed twelve sparrows. It was the Sabbath
when he did these things, and many children were with him.3 And a certain Jew, seeing the boy Jesus with the
other children doing these things, went to his father Joseph and falsely
accused the boy Jesus, saying that, on the Sabbath he made clay, which is not
lawful, and fashioned twelve sparrows.4 And Joseph came and rebuked him, saying, “Why are you
doing these things on the Sabbath?” But Jesus, clapping his hands, commanded
the birds with a shout in front of everyone and said, “Go, take flight, and
remember me, living ones.” And the sparrows, taking flight, went away
squawking.5 When the Pharisee saw this he was amazed and reported
it to all his friends.

Some of the stories are horrible, suggesting
that the young boy Jesus would curse people and they would die.

But then others present a more pleasing side
to Jesus:

8 1 And again, after many days, Jesus was playing with other children
on a certain roof of an upstairs room. And one of the children fell and died.
The other children, seeing this, went to their homes. And they left Jesus
alone.2 The parents of the dead child came and accused Jesus
saying, “You knocked down our child.” But Jesus said, “I did not knock him
down.”3 And while they were raging and shouting, Jesus came
down from the roof and stood beside the body and cried out in a loud voice
saying, “Zeno, Zeno—for this was his name—rise and say if I knocked you down.”
And he rose and said, “No, Lord.” When they saw, they were amazed and the
parents of the child praised God for these wonders.

Another story is one of my favorites:

11 1 And he was about
eight years old. And when his father, a carpenter, was making ploughs and
yokes, he received a bed from a certain rich man so that he might make it exceedingly
great and suitable. And since one of the required pieces was shorter and he did
not have a measure, Joseph was distressed, not knowing what to do. The boy came
to his father and said, “Put down the two pieces of wood and align them from
your end.”2 Joseph did just as Jesus said to him. And the boy
stood at the other end and took hold of the short piece of wood and stretched
it. And he made it equal to the other piece of wood. And he said to his father,
“Do not be distressed but do what you wish.” And Joseph embraced and kissed him
saying, “Blessed am I for God gave me this boy.”

(Quotations are from The Childhood
of the Saviour (Infancy Gospel of Thomas): A New Translation, Translation
copyright 2009 Tony Burke. All rights reserved.)

The last story in the collection, is the
story of Jesus staying behind in Jerusalem which we read in today’s Gospel.

It’s actually the only Biblical account of
Jesus’ life from his birth until he began his ministry many years later.

There are other stories.For example the Koran, the Holy Book of Islam
has its own account of Jesus’ birth:

The
Birth of Jesus

“So
she conceived him, and she withdrew with him to a remote place.And the pains of childbirth drove her to the
trunk of a palm tree.She said, ‘I wish
I had died before this, and had been long forgotten.[Mary was worried that people would think
badly of her as she was not married.]Then (baby Jesus) called her from below her, saying, ‘Don’t be sad.Your Lord has provided a stream under
you.’Shake the trunk of the palm tree
towards you, and it will drop on you fresh ripe dates.So eat and drink and be happy.And if you see any human, then say, ‘Indeed I
have vowed a fast to the Most Merciful so I will not speak to any human
today.’Then she carried him and brought
him to her people.They said, ‘O Mary,
indeed you have done a great evil.’‘O
sister of Aaron, your father was not an evil man, and your mother was not a
fornicator.’So she pointed to him.They said, ‘How can we speak to a child in
the cradle?’(Jesus) said, ‘Indeed, I am
a slave of God.He has given me the
Scripture and made me a prophet.[4]And
He has made me blessed wherever I may be, and He has enjoined on me prayer and
charity as long as I remain alive.And
(has made) me kind to my mother, and did not make me arrogant or
miserable.And peace be upon me the day
I was born, and the day I will die, and the day I will be raised alive.’”
(Quran 19:22-33)(

Just to note, Muslims believe Jesus was a
great prophet, and they ascribe to him a miraculous birth, with him being able
to speak from the first day, but they absolutely do not believe that his virgin
birth or special powers made him God.

It’s no wonder that some early authors sought
to fill in the void with stories about his childhood.Yet most of them appear fanciful, and in
fact, are preoccupied with Jesus’ divinity.

You see, it all boils down to this:

The single greatest offense of the Christian
faith, the one that separates us from all other faiths, and the offense that
stands counter to ALL reason, is that God could humble himself and become fully
human, subject even unto death.

The second offense is related to that, and
that is that God would do this in order to reach out to us in love.

Fully human.

Mary, not the angels, had to change his
diapers.

She nursed him at her breast.

Joseph and Mary rejoiced when he learned to
walk.

He would have to
learn to speak.

Undoubtedly, he
got colds and other childhood illnesses.

He studied.

He learned.

Probably he
learned his father’s trade, and was skilled as a carpenter, though nothing is
said about that.

He might also
have misbehaved.

Which brings us
back to Jerusalem, and Mary and Joseph’s worst nighmare.Losing Jesus.

First of all, in
Mary and Joseph’s defense, “it takes a village to raise a child.”What I mean by that is that often, in
communities such as theirs, children moved in and about the community and were
with their neighbors and relatives as much as their parents.

I had the
opportunity to grow up in one such town.I asked my parents if I go could home to the farm of one of my friends
after church.I went.I stayed because I was having so much
fun.Finally, on the next Saturday, my
father came out to the farm and got me.“Why
didn’t you come home?”“I was having fun.”

So, anyway, for
Mary and Joseph to assume Jesus was somewhere with their friends and relatives
would have been common.

Instead Jesus was
present in the temple, talking with the teachers.

Some of the apocryphal
stories of Jesus childhood suggest that he always turned the tables and taught
his teachers.

But I’d suggest
that instead of something miraculous occurring this is just an example of Jesus’
hungering for knowledge and wisdom.

At any rate,
Jesus’ behavior concerned his parents.They were alarmed, afraid of what might have happened to him, and
perhaps even angry with him once they found him.

Jesus then,
returned to Nazareth with them and obeyed them.

Obedience is one
of the things we learn as we grow.

This is the one
story about Jesus’s boyhood that is included in the bible, and it is a story
about learning to obey.

On Christmas Eve,
I shared the passage from Philippians 2:

And being found in human form,

he humbled himself

and became obedient to the point of death—

even death on a cross.

Jesus, God
incarnate, becoming obedient.

Obedience is not
the first word most of us would use to describe Jesus.

Yet it was Jesus
willingness to submit to the Father’s will that allowed him to become our
Savior.

In our lesson
today, Paul writes:

12As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved,
clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.
13Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive
each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.
14Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in
perfect harmony. 15And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which
indeed you were called in the one body.

Bear with one
another.

Forgive one
another.

Love one another.

Be at peace.

This is the Way
of Jesus.

And to walk with
Jesus is to be obedient as Jesus was.

I’m suggesting to
you, that just as the boy Jesus had to learn obedience, so also, our growth in
faith is about learning to obey.

But this
obedience is not one offered out of fear of punishment, but rather out of love.